Battleheart

Combat

The player selects 1-4 characters to form a party and bring to a combat scenario. The scenarios are standard wave-based levels where successful completion gives the party gold, experience for its members, and a piece of loot; wave-based, survival arenas where a party fights until death to gain gold and loot; and boss battles with slightly more complicated mechanics that award the party gold, experience for its members, and a piece of loot.

Basic aggro mechanics are present where a hit from a heavily-armored character will cause most enemies to fixate on that character. Variations exist that require more advanced tactics including kiting and effective use of crowd control abilities.

Each character has a set of special cooldown-based abilities with that can be used for additional area of effect or single-target damage, crowd control, or other utility (e.g. reduced healing or additional damage taken by a targeted enemy).

Controls

Controls are touch-based with the player drawing connections between characters and the location to which they should move, characters and enemy targets, and healer characters to party targets. The player also selects character special abilities by selecting a character by tapping and then tapping an ability in the top-left corner of the screen.

Tilt and shake functionalities are not used in this game.

Player-Controlled Characters

Character archetypes are tank, healer, ranged damage, and melee damage. Of these types, there are variations based on the character subtype. Characters used in non-arena battle gain experience and increase in level, gaining power and specialization choices as they advance.

Each character subtype has a specialization tree with two options at every five levels up to 30 at which point no more specialization decisions are available, with the exception of level 25 at which point the character gains a set power. These specializations are either a selection between a pair of active skills or passive bonuses.

Characters are not capped at level 30 but can continue to gain levels up to a cap.

Character archetypes and subtypes:

Tank

• Monk
• Paladin
• Warrior

Healer

• Bard
• Cleric

Ranged Damage

• Wizard
• Witch
• Ranger

Melee Damage

• Barbarian
• Rogue

Enemies

Enemies come in several types with varying mechanics. The mechanics generally have to do with threat. There are three main types of basic enemy:

Those who follow the aggro rules (i.e. a special or regular hit by a tank character will cause the enemy to fixate upon the tank)

• Non-Archer Skeletons
• Goblins
• Ogres
• Black Bats

Those who will fixate on a single character but be able to be taunted off with the warrior special ability

• Red Bats
• Green and Red Slimes

Those who will randomly attack characters or heal enemies and whose target selection cannot be controlled by player action.

• Archers
• Necromancers

They will either enter from the sides of the field of play or directly onto the field of play. Bats, Necromancers, and Archers arrive randomly while the rest of the enemies will enter from the sides of the field of play.

There are a small number of additional boss battles that include additional mechanics like locational damage over time puddles, area of effect/randomly targeted damage to the party, and unhealable damage to a tank that remains in melee range.